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The Viennese Waltz is the classic, old, original waltz. A waltzing couple rotate around each other as they fly gracefully around the room. This article discusses the origin and nature of the Viennese Waltz, also known as the Vienna Waltz, the rotary waltz, and in Vienna as the Wiener Walzer. Since Johann Strauss Jr. wrote so many Viennese waltzes the Viennese waltz is sometimes called the Strauss waltz, though that term more properly refers to the music written by Strauss. Some people mistakenly call it the Vietnamese waltz, which does not exist. This article lists formal balls around the United States. There are appendices on options for learning to dance, how to do the Viennese Waltz including step diagrams, clothes, etiquette, what makes a good ball, recorded music, dance floor friction and debutante functions. The Viennese waltz is both a competition ballroom dance and a social ballroom dance. The age of the Viennese waltz is uncertain, but from Goethe's comments one might infer it to date from the mid 1700's, probably as early as 1750. It should be noted that before the first World War, "waltz" meant a fast waltz, unless specified otherwise. The fast waltz was the original waltz. By the 1930's, among competition ballroom dancers, "waltz" came to mean the slow waltz, which evolved from the "Boston", and the fast waltz was renamed the Viennese Waltz, with reference to the city that originally made it famous. For more on this change in the meaning of the word see Appendix H. The Boston originated in the 1870's, but did not achieve any popularity until the early 1900's. The competition slow waltz has many complicated maneuvers that work only at slow tempo. Among country and western dancers, the word waltz retains its original meaning as the international style Viennese waltz, though some country-western dancers do onestep to waltz music instead. Another thing that some people call a waltz is the box step. Even though the name Viennese makes it sound foreign, Viennese Waltz was the most popular dance at balls in the USA before 1910. Why did the slow waltz gain popularity? The slow waltz has never shown much potential as a social dance; balls based primarily on slow waltz have never been, and never will be, popular. Some powerful forces outside the world of dancing are opposed to balls; they would naturally prefer that if any waltz be taught, it be the slow waltz. The best customers of dance teachers are amateur competition dancers, who want to master the endless intricacies of competition ballroom dancing. Dance teachers prefer dances with more figures to teach so they can teach more lessons. The original waltz had few figures. The international competition slow waltz has many figures, and it is a true ballroom dance. The American style competition "Viennese" waltz also has many figures, but the only ones that are true ballroom dance figures are the few borrowed from the original Viennese waltz. The rest would mostly best be described as show dance figures, though in a strict technical, not cultural, sense they are latin figures. Many of the most knowledgeable and proficient ballroom dance teachers are enamored with ballroom dance as an art form, like ballet, and have little regard for its simpler forms and its historical use for social interaction. Since ballet has been mentioned, it should be pointed out that ballet and ballroom are entirely different disciplines; it makes as little sense to hire a ballet teacher to teach ballroom as to hire a biology teacher to teach physics, unless the ballet teacher is willing to seriously study the best books about ballroom dancing. There were many more balls in the USA before 1910 than there are now. Emily Holt's 1901 "Encyclopaedia of Etiquette" had 56 pages devoted to balls; now they would receive little or no mention. On p. 160 of her book she says "So few are the cities, towns, or even small villages where dancing classes are not held that there seems hardly any excuse for a man to attend a ball and refuse to dance...". When balls were popular in America, theadversaries of dance argued that ballroom dancing could cause divorce and illegitimacy. Now few know how to dance, we have few balls, but we have much higher rates of divorce and illegitimacy. Popular music serves to further illustrate changes in American culture. In 1969 450,000 people attended the Woodstock rock concert in New York state. The behavior of some was very different from what it would have been in church on Sunday morning. In 1872 100,000 people attended a World Peace Jubilee concert in Boston where the waltz king Johann Strauss Jr. conducting his music was one of the star attractions. It seems unlikely that their behavior was much different from what it would have been in church on Sunday morning. Music of both Strauss and Stephen Foster were popular at the time of the wild west. Little country and western music comes to us from that period. "Home on the Range", written in the 1870's celebrates life and nature. By contrast most country and western music of the 1900's is considerably more pessimistic. Perhaps a change back to the less pessimistic cultural tone of the 1800's would be a good thing. This change is probably most needed by those who are most disadvantaged, inner city youth. Popular culture can influence self image and self confidence. Accordingly, this article also discusses low cost balls which can put this recreation within the means of any group. Those interested in waltz history will want to see the following: this preface, the first two paragraphs of the next section, the latter part of Appendix A, the paragraph about ladies period costumes in Appendix D , Appendix H, the paragraph about the box step in the article about social ballroom dancing at this website, the history paragraph in the article about balls in Vienna at this website, and the entire article about American balls in the 1800's at this website. For history of the tango see the section by that name in the social dancing article. If the lines of text in this article are too long on your screen, click the square icon in the upper right hand corner of your browser to reduce the size of your browser. On some browsers, you can drag the lower right hand corner of your browser to adjust line length. This article is too long for most people to read the whole thing on the computer screen, but the list of contents above provides links to conveniently navigate the document. It prints out to less than 90 pages from my browser. If you do not have your own computer, you probably cannot print this article at a library computer, but many document copying shops have internet access and can print it out for you.